1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to enhancing application server performance in a network. More particularly, the present invention relates to enhancing application server performance in a network by relocating performance-degrading processing away from the application server.
2. Background Information
Historically, most critical back-end data operations for enterprises have been implemented in mainframe computer systems, for example, SNA applications operating on a mainframe from International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). As one skilled in the art will know, “SNA” stands for System Network Architecture, a proprietary IBM architecture and set of implementing products for networking an enterprise. After the advent of the Internet, these same enterprises then wanted to be able to access these applications over networks employing TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), for example, the Internet. Systems have been devised that allowed remote access to these types of applications. For example, TN3270 provides the capability to send 3270 screen controls via TCP/IP. However, communicating with SNA application servers over TCP/IP involves additional CPU processing overhead to accommodate the differing capabilities of the two protocols. This can result in an overall degradation in the performance of such servers for mission-critical applications.
For example, SNA applications use the EBCDIC data format, whereas the ASCII data format is used outside of the SNA applications. Thus, converting between these data formats is necessary. In addition, as another example, commands from the client to the TN3270 server are embedded within the data stream destined for the SNA application. Thus, the TN3270 server must scan for commands within the information flow and separate them from the data (referred herein to as “command scanning and packaging”).
Still further, beyond the processing-intensive operations described above, TN3270 involves communicating with the application server over a non-standard port, port 23, which raises additional security issues beyond those already faced for Internet access. For security reasons, enterprises do not want to open up more ports in their firewalls than are absolutely necessary. The standard port that is typically opened for Internet access is port 80, and security is already in place to handle the fact that port 80 is opened.
Thus, a need exists for a way to enhance the performance of SNA application servers. A further need exists to provide a uniform model for access to SNA applications over a standard port.